Ex-tennis coach at Main Line school charged with corruption of minor

Former Sacred Heart tennis coach Charles Meredith is led into District Court in by Plymouth Detectives Friday, Dec. 13, 2013. Meredith is charged with two counts of corrupting a minor from Sacred Heart Day School in Radnor. Photo by Gene Walsh/Times Herald Staff.

NORRISTOWN — An Upper Merion man and former tennis coach at a Delaware County school allegedly had improper contact, which included sexual-related text messages and kissing, with a teenage girl he coached, according to authorities.

Charles M. Meredith IV, 52, of the 200 block of Balligomingo Road, was arraigned Friday before District Court Judge Francis J. Bernhardt III, of Conshohocken, on a misdemeanor charge of corruption of a minor in connection with alleged incidents that occurred in Plymouth between August and October.

Authorities alleged Meredith met the girl while he was a coach at the Country Day School of the Sacred Heart, a private, Catholic college preparatory school located in the 400 block of South Bryn Mawr Avenue in Radnor Township.

“The charges stem from a relationship that involved inappropriate electronic communication, sexually-related text messages and then one incident during which the defendant engaged in kissing this 15-year-old,” said Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman, who announced Meredith’s arrest on Friday. “Very thankfully, the teenager reported these incidents to her mother and a report was made to law enforcement before things got even worse than this.

Advertisement

“I really credit this teenager for really stepping forward, for stopping this conduct before it got any further and reporting it to authorities so we could take appropriate action,” Ferman said.

An investigation began in November and included police from Radnor Township in Delaware County and police in Lower Merion and Plymouth in Montgomery County.

On Oct. 19, according to the criminal complaint, Meredith and the tennis team were at a Lower Merion restaurant for a dinner celebrating the end of the season and after the dinner Meredith sent an improper text message to the victim.

“The message included language about how ‘hot’ (the) juvenile victim looked that evening and that she would be Meredith’s dessert,” Plymouth Detective Andrew Moretti wrote in the arrest affidavit.

A teammate of the victim also viewed the text message and confirmed it was sent from Meredith’s phone number, according to the criminal complaint. The victim told her mother later that evening that she had been receiving inappropriate text messages from Meredith for a few months and reported Meredith “would sometimes brush up against her,” according to the arrest affidavit.

On Oct. 21, the girl and her mother filed a complaint with the Radnor Police Department, at which time the girl divulged Meredith had offered to take her out for ice cream and to take her to a personal trainer, according to court papers.

According to the victim, sometime in August 2013 after a tennis training practice at a residence in Lower Merion, Meredith drove the girl to Super Fit Gym on Colwell Lane in Plymouth, claiming he was taking her to see a personal trainer, court papers alleged. But when the trainer was not there, Meredith told the girl he would take her for ice cream, authorities alleged.

The victim allegedly told detectives Meredith drove a short distance and put the vehicle in park.

“Meredith then leaned over and put his hands around her neck and began kissing her on the mouth for a period of two to three minutes,” Moretti alleged in the arrest affidavit. “Meredith then drove to Scoops Ice Cream in Conshohocken and told her not to tell anyone about this incident.”

Meredith then drove the girl back to the Lower Merion home where the practice session had been held, with milkshakes for two other juveniles at the residence, court papers alleged.

“If the charges are proven to be true, these actions represent a gross breach of trust. We send our children to school hoping that they will be cared for and protected and in most situations they are,” Ferman said. “But when you have someone who violates the trust placed in them and instead of looking out for the best interests of a child, violates, manipulates and abuses that child, we’re all impacted. The child who’s the victim is impacted, the family is impacted and the school community is impacted as well.”

None of Meredith’s alleged improper conduct occurred at the school where he coached. Ferman explained that while the relationship between the student and her coach centered at the school the alleged improper contact took place in Montgomery County.

Word of an investigation of a coach at the Main Line school leaked Oct. 30 when a letter sent to parents from Sacred Heart, and obtained by Main Line Media News, stated that an unidentified coach was terminated over allegations of inappropriate contact with a student. That letter stated that the coach had not been on campus that week and that school officials were cooperating fully with police and Child Protective Services.

“We came to learn that this situation was not new,” Head of School Sister Matthew Anita MacDonald, SSJ, wrote in the letter to parents. “When teammates discovered the situation, they immediately pressed the student to tell her mother everything. Why had she hesitated? She did not want to jeopardize the scholarship hopes of her teammates. Such unselfish concern and on-going support of each other witnesses to the lived goals of Children of the Sacred Heart.”